--Religion, which often has aspects of homophobia built in--visceral disgust and dismay at the thought of the homosexual act, which I am straight-up willing to call homophobia when manifested anywhere beyond the bounds of one's own personal skull--considered disgust and dismay at the thought of the homosexual act (see above)--the belief that gay people should not raise children or are less appropriate/effective parents, although this is of course irrelevant (infertile and non-reproducing opposite-sex people marry all the time), such that the very raising of this point as a possible ground of opposition tends to show bad faith and pretext, evincing homophobia--"tradition" for its own sake; also so fundamentally stupid that, like the irrelevant grounds, simply raising this as a basis for the opinion tends to indicate to me the presence of bad faith and pretext, therefore the real-but-heretofore-hidden ground of homophobia/bigotry--"majority rules"--this is unsatisfying since it does not account for the reasons of that majority, who presumably are not all doing this just because everyone else is doing it (i.e. certainly not everyone involved in the "majority" feels the way they do because they believe in "majority rules"--it gets tautological and nonsensical very quickly, as well as being wholly hypothetical and not based in reality)

He's very young (oh, and also he's fairly short). He's a local DA working in a majority-minority local court. I personally think it probably helps the office's status in the neighborhood to have someone clearly attuned to his heritage working for the state and not for the defendants.

sexual orientation discrimination, and specifically anti-same-sex-marriage ordinances discriminate on the basis of sex. My friend Austin is a man. I can marry him because I am a woman. If I were a man, I would not be allowed to marry him. Similarly, my friend Evan cannot marry Austin because Evan is a man. If Evan were a woman, Evan would be allowed to marry Austin. Anti-"gay"-marriage ordinances discriminate against Evan on the basis of Evan's sex. This is not constitutional (under rational basis or intermediate/strict scrutiny). This is exactly analogous to Loving, where prohibiting whites from marrying blacks as well as prohibiting blacks from marrying whites was explicitly held to be discriminatory and NOT "equal treatment." That was held in the 1960s not to constitute equality in the meaning of the Equal Protection clause.

Sex discrimination demands heightened scrutiny when the statute/law is facially based on sex, as these ordinances are. It's kind of mushy whether it's intermediate scrutiny, strict scrutiny, or something in between. Depends on who you ask, but sex discrimination at least gets "intermediate" scrutiny.

(Although same-sex marriage ordinances have been overturned on rational basis review, I believe.)

I don't see the analogy to Rostker, which is still good law for a number of doctrinally different reasons. (Not to mention wrongly decided in the first place.) (Nor to the combat exclusion as a policy, which may be what you're referring to.)

The Bill of Rights, and arguably the Supreme Court, exist in order to ensure that the majority does not have free "democratic" reign to oppress the minority whenever it feels like. That's the Carolene Products point, and it gets at the underlying point of homophobia and bigotry, which is what these laws are really about, just as Loving acknowledged that what was really going on was racial purity as a means of reinforcing white supremacy. Oppression by the majority is something I am extremely attuned to, and I have absolutely no qualms about the court stepping in to do its job of preventing it.

I know @#!*-all about USD's culture, but I've always thought USD is one of the hidden gems of the law school world. It's the leader in its market while still not being incredibly difficult admissions-wise, plus you're living in not-a-shithole (e.g. somewhere in the Rust Belt). I'd inquire more about leftiness or lack thereof, but consider also that they're sure to have at least a couple of lefty-ish profs. It's law school, after all, not business school. Then you can just glom onto those profs and be their best friends, which should cover your bases resume-wise for letters of rec, research assistantships, mentoring, etc.

There's an ADA in the court my clinic works in who has locks so long he can sit on them. He ties them back with locks from the side of his head (half-back sort of look). I think he looks very professional (always in a suit), but I always think natural hairstyles look professional. What do I know.